Australian Base Load Electrical Power – Week Ending 28th April 2018

This is the continuing Post, where each Saturday, I will detail the power consumption for the Base Load in Australia for the previous week. This will show what is actually meant by the term Base Load, and that is the minimum daily power consumption at its lowest point. Power consumption never falls below this point.

Here in Australia, that level of power is 18,000MW. (See data for the Running Weekly Average For Base Load below)

The Bayswater Coal Fired Power Plant In New South Wales

This data I have collated below is for this last week, and is for the five States connected to the Australian grids, every State east of the Western Australian border, and here I will show that data for each of those five States, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania.

As you can see from these numbers, that huge amount of power is being supplied mainly by coal fired power, and on most days that coal fired power provides 80% or more of that level of power, at that time, when power consumption is at its lowest level, that total of 18,000MW.

All of this data is taken at a single point in time, and that is at 4AM of every day, when nearly all of us are sound asleep.

This Week’s Average For Peak Load Supplied from Coal Fired Power – 17572MW – 72.1%

*****

Comments For This Last Week

As you can see, the rolling Average for the Base Load has dipped back below 18000MW (albeit by only 0.08%, a tiny amount) and that is almost at the end of Autumn, and it will again begin to rise when Winter starts. Coal fired power is still delivering the bulk of the power both at that 4AM minimum Base Load, and also at the Peak Power time, now firmly back around the Winter time of 6PM in all States. As you can also see from the images below, the Load Curve is also slowly changing back to the cooler Month profile of the two peaks.

The coal fired contribution, both at the 4AM time and the evening Peak, actually rose this week. Because that coal fired contribution at 4AM rose, while the rolling Base Load total dropped slightly, the percentage delivered from coal fired power rose to 81%, and at the evening Peak it also rose, now at 72% for the week.

Still in those benign Autumn Months, a steady total of 7 Units were offline all the week, for either routine long term maintenance or as in the case of two Units, Upgrades to increase their efficiency, and thus their output. Again, most of those Units off line were in New South Wales, where they had four Units down all week, and that was a total of 2760MW, which is a substantial loss of power, and because of that, the Interconnnector to Queensland was regularly supplying at its maximum, as the extra coal fired Units in Queensland covered those losses in New South Wales.

One thing of note was the total for Wind power on Wednesday. Note that at 4AM, wind power across the whole of this Australian coverage area was barely managing 250MW, and that’s out of a Nameplate of almost 5000MW, so wind was generating its power at a Capacity Factor (CF) of only 5%, (and the long term yearly average is 30% CF) so, for every 100 towers, only five of them had their blades actually turning. That 250MW was only 1.5% of the power which was actually being consumed. This again highlights the variability of wind power. Just what do you expect to happen if they install considerably more wind power, and then you have times like this when it is so low.

The Ability Of Coal Fired Power To Ramp Up And Down

How many times have you heard that coal fired power is inflexible because it cannot ramp up and down to follow the actual Load. (the actual power being consumed) It is a common belief, and also a common thing to hear, that coal fired power just runs at its maximum power generation all the time, and that it cannot change very much from that total, in other words, it just runs at its maximum all the time. Many years ago, I even believed that myself. However, when I started to look more closely, I noticed that coal fired power actually did decrease and increase its power generation across time, here the normal daily operation of those power plants. When viewed as a whole, I noticed that the total power delivery changed across the hours in the day, and that coal fired power generation actually did follow the Load.

When less power was needed, like at that 4AM Time of lowest power consumption, the Base Load I always mention, then coal fired power delivers less power. During the day as power consumption increases to the daily Peaks, (with the one major peak in Summer at around 5PM to 6PM, and the two peaks in the cooler Months, one around 7AM to 8AM, and the second and larger Peak in the evenings at around 6PM) what I noticed (and it was more pronounced in those cooler Months) was that coal fired power generation would rise in the mornings, drop away a little, and then rise to the large evening Peak, and then fall away again towards that next morning’s 4AM minimum Base Load. While it does this on the total basis, each Unit at each of the individual Power Plants also varies its output across the day as well, but it is best seen as an overall total, and I can actually show you how that happens across the day with these two images below.

While these two images are shown as small images here, if you click on each individual image, it will open on a new page and in a much larger size so you can see the detail a lot better.

Both of these images were taken on the same day, Thursday 26th April 2018.

The image at left shows Total Power Generation from all sources. The black line at the top shows the overall total power generation. The blue line just under that shows the power generation just from Fossil Fuels. The orange line close to the bottom of the image shows Hydro Power generation. Under that, the purple line indicates the total power generation from Wind Power and the red line you can just see right at the bottom is the power generation from Solar Power.

The image at the right shows the total power generation from all Fossil Fuels, and that is the black line at the top. This is the same as the blue line in the image at left. The black line immediately under that top line is the total power generation from Coal Fired Power.

Note on the left image that the fossil fuel total closely follows the Total generation, which is as close as possible to actual power consumption. Then, note in the right image that the coal fired power total closely follows that of the total fossil fuel generation, so, in fact, coal fired power is following the Load.

Now, let’s add some figures to those images for coal fired power.

See at the minimum point there, close to the left, and if you look at the horizontal axis below, this indicates the time through the day, and as you can see, the lowest point, the minimum power consumption and generation, that is around 4AM, you’ll see that the total from coal fired power is around 14500MW, as indicated in the data figures above. Then, coal fired power begins to ramp up towards the morning Peak at around 8AM as people get out of bed and ready for the work and school day ahead. That rise in power generation is around 2700MW. Then, as people leave home and the work and school day begins, power consumption drops off slightly, as does power generation, and it drops by around 1700MW, and then it slowly rises again to the major evening Peak at 6PM, where it is around 18000MW, a rise of 2000MW from the Midday dip, and 3500MW higher than the low point at 4AM. Generation (and the same goes for consumption also) then slowly falls away, heading back to the low of close to 15000MW the following morning.

Note that at no time during the day are there any rapid and large spikes, either up or down, which need to be addressed, as the actual consumption rises and falls relatively slowly, and as is now evident, those rises and falls are easily handled by coal fired power. And this is not just one day I have cherry picked in isolation, as every day is exactly the same.

So, when you hear that coal fired power is inflexible, and cannot be used for Load Following purposes, what I have shown you here effectively debunks that whole rumour completely.

And now, one last thing. Look closely at that left image again. See the black line at the top, and then the blue line just below that which indicates fossil fuels, and from the right image note that coal fired power is far and away the largest contributor to those fossil fuels. Take away coal fired power and all you have left is the renewables, again that left image, and they are the orange (Hydro) purple (Wind) and red (Solar) and they are those colours at the bottom of that left image. When you add them, up, even at the maximum shown here, it’s only 4000MW at the Peak Power time, and that Peak is close to 24,000MW, so a discrepancy of 20000MW. Imagine how far you have to ramp up construction of wind and solar plants to even get remotely close to that Peak. Even at the 4AM minimum, you still need an extra 14000MW.

There is just no way you can do without coal fired power when you look at this generic image and note the huge amounts of power required, and required on a constant basis as well, not on the variable nature of wind power and solar power.

There really is no substitute for coal fired power.

Anton Lang uses the screen name of TonyfromOz, and he writes at this site, PA Pundits International on topics related to electrical power generation, from all sources, concentrating mainly on Renewable Power, and how the two most favoured methods of renewable power generation, Wind Power and all versions of Solar Power, fail comprehensively to deliver levels of power required to replace traditional power generation. His Bio is at this link.

Hi Tony. I have been following this for a few weeks now, and find it valuable. Comparing the various energy sources and their respective input, at a specific point in time can be very telling!
But now, I am finding that I want more information, but not sure where to get it? What I would like to see, is a daily/weekly/monthly tally of total output from the various energy sources, expressed as a total/percentage. This potentially could be very telling, especially for wind.
For your 4AM totals, the wind percentage could be relatively high, and possibly give the casual observer, that wind, overall, contributes at a higher rate than it actually does? Whereas a daily total, covers all the highs and lows of the day, and gives a true average of a particular power sources input. Maybe this information is already out there, somewhere, but most of what I have seen is just the instantaneous output, either stated (AEMO), or graphed (Aneroid). Maybe you have already covered this Tony? If so, could you provide a link?
Do you think that information expressed this way would differ much from the percentages/values presented in your most valuable weekly post?
Cheers! Rob

I was just wondering how I might address how I could do something like this.

As you may know, the main ‘thrust’ of this continuing Series is that minimum figure for power consumption at that low point in time, 4AM, the Base Load.

To add all that extra data to what I have already been doing might make the Posts considerably larger and then detract from the overall point I am trying to make, that 18000MW total for minimum power consumption.

However, what I might do, just to show you that it wouldn’t be an easy task, (more along the lines of time consuming really) is that for this upcoming week, I’ll add what you have suggested in the Comments area below the data, just as a personal exercise to see how time consuming it really might be.

If it doesn’t take too much time, what I might then do, is to begin a whole new Series detailing just that data, so it is separate from this Post.

It’s an odd thing really. I read the comment, and the first thing I think of is how much extra time it might take, and then I begin trying to find a way to make something like that work. Sometimes, it’s funny just how the brain works.

As a rule of thumb, Wind power on average across the whole year would supply between 6% and 6.5% of all the generated power here in Australia. Now, that’s a yearly total. There will be days, perhaps weeks when it will be higher than that, but there will also be days and weeks when it is lower. It averages out across the whole year as 6% to 6.5%.

Again thanks for the Comment. It gives me something extra to do. We’ll see how it goes with next week’s Post.

Tony, I very much appreciate your reply and positive response! I wasn’t meaning to give you extra work! Sometimes we can be so busy! Anyway, it will be interesting to see the figures, and maybe a post over on STT might make it more valuable and worthwhile. But then, it may only be a small number of people who would be interested? Thanks again! Rob.

as I mentioned, it’s sometimes strange how the brain works, because I’ve been working on it now for a few hours, how to go about it. At first I thought it would be a pretty big task, but it’s not so bad once I worked out some of the basics. Hopefully I’ll have the first one ready for Monday 7th May, and I’ll add just one day to the text in comments for the coming week’s Base Load Series as a teaser.

As to STT, I’m pretty much flat out with everything I do at my own site. I’ll leave comments at the JoNova site, but there really aren’t enough hours in the day to be at so many other sites. Once my Series is up and running, I suppose I could contact them and ask if they want to take the permanent link to my Posts at their site, but I don’t want to impose on what they do at their site.

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